Vegan Sanctuary talks with Melanie Joy about her groundbreaking new book
Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows.
An Introduction to CARNISM.
The belief system that enables us to eat some animals and not others.
Melanie Joy is a social psychologist, professor, author, and personal/relationship coach. She is known for her work transforming disempowering, dysfunctional relationships to empowering, functional ones. Her work addresses relationships at both the macro and micro levels, including:
*humanity’s relationship with animals and the environment
*relationships among social groups
*intimate relationships
Melanie has written numerous articles on psychology, animal rights, and social justice and is also the author of the activist handbook...
Strategic Action for Animals: Handbook on Strategic Movement Building, Organizing, and Activism for Animal Liberation.
Philip:
I'm really excited to have this discussion with you and I want to talk with you mainly about beliefs and specifically about the problems of human's beliefs regarding non human animals. However, before we get into all of that can you please explain to the readers Why we love dogs, eat pigs and wear cows?
Melanie:
That’s a great first question. When I say “We Love Dogs” in the title, I’m referring to people in U.S. and some other western cultures, since dogs aren’t beloved companions in all places in the world. However, the reason people love certain animals and eat others is similar among meat-eating cultures around the world: because there is an invisible, powerful belief system that teaches us to harbor very different perceptions of and behaviors toward different animal species.
Philip:
I was beyond thrilled when I read your new book which gave a name to the belief system of eating animals which you coined as carnism. Can you define the term and how, why you came up with the word?
Melanie:
Carnism is the term I use to describe the widespread, invisible belief system, or ideology, that conditions us to eat (certain) animals. It’s essentially the opposite of vegetarianism or veganism. Most people view meat eating as a given, rather than a choice. But when eating meat isn’t a necessity for survival, as is the case in the majority of the world today, it is a choice—and choices always stem from beliefs. We tend to assume it’s only veg*ns who bring their beliefs to the dinner table. But carnists (meat eaters) don’t love dogs but eat pigs, for instance, because they don’t have a belief system when it comes to eating animals.
I want to point out that “carnist” is not meant to be a pejorative term. It’s merely meant to be descriptive, just as capitalist, Buddhist, socialist, or raw foodist is. If we have a name for vegans and vegetarians, it only makes sense to have a name for those who act in accordance with the opposing belief system. And referring to a carnist as an omnivore isn’t accurate; an omnivore is an animal, human or nonhuman, that can ingest both plant and animal matter.
Similarly, a carnivore is an animal that needs to eat flesh to survive. And while it’s possible that humans are naturally omnivorous (though there’s plenty of evidence now surfacing to suggest we are naturally herbivorous), we certainly aren’t carnivores. But the problem goes beyond anatomy: omnivore and carnivore describe one’s biological predisposition, not one’s ideological choice. If humans are omnivores, then I (as a vegan) am as much an omnivore as a carnist. And referring to a carnist as a meat eater is also inaccurate; “meat eater” divorces the behavior of eating animals, or “meat,” from the belief system that enables such behavior. This is why vegans don’t refer to ourselves as “plant eaters;” we understand that eating plants is a behavior that reflects an underlying ideology.
I want to stress, though, that it’s important not to use the term carnist in a derogatory way and that we need to be careful in our use of it around carnists. Many carnists do perceive the term as offensive because—in my opinion—on some level they consider eating animals to be offensive. So referring to them as a carnist can cause them to become even more defensive about their meat eating.
Philip:
Do you think with this information we can come to some understanding that our world is not filled with all cruel people doing mean things to animals but rather a lot of good people who actually believe inaccurate things/ideas about animals. Wrong ideas or myths that have been drummed into their heads since they were children? And also that we as a species fail to criticize these beliefs the way we eventually have done about so many other myths about the world and others that we now realize are false.
Melanie:
Yes. In fact, a goal of my book is to help veg*ns and carnists alike realize that humane people can and do participate in inhumane practices without even realizing what they’re doing. We are so conditioned to eat animals that for most of us, the notion of not consuming them is absurd, an impossibility, a profound threat to our sense of self, belonging, and our core philosophical orientation. It’s so easy for those of us who are vegan to forget that—for most of us—we weren’t born that way. Once we come into this vegan consciousness—step outside the carnistic paradigm—we see the world through radically different eyes. It’s like we’re living on another planet, speaking a different language from carnists. But we need to remember what it was like for us, and we need to communicate with carnists in a way they can understand, from a place of common ground. For better or worse, we are ambassadors for the movement, and it’s up to us to reach out to carnists in a way that invites them into conversation. We can’t do that if we view them as selfish oppressors.
Understanding carnism can help us (and carnists) see that the system is comprised of a set of deeply entrenched, invisible, and quite powerful defense mechanisms that become internalized—that shape the psychology of carnists. The whole system is organized to maintain itself, to prevent people from making the connection between meat (and other animal products) and animals, between their values and practices, between themselves and other beings. When we talk to carnists, we often encounter such defensiveness and assume (understandably) that such a reaction is because the carnist doesn’t care, doesn’t want to change, prefers complacency over compassion, etc. And while in certain cases there may be some truth to this, the much more common reason carnists are so defensive is because carnism lives inside their minds and hearts; the invisible system shapes their perceptions, feelings, attitudes, and behaviors. Learning about carnistic defenses is essential for veg*n advocates so that we can speak to the carnist, rather than to her or his defenses, and so that we can have compassion and respect for people who are not (yet) vegan.
I wrote my book in hope that veg*ns would give it to the carnists in their lives. I wrote it to reach out to carnists and invite them into the conversation, and to help them understand why they do eat meat and other products procured from animals, rather than simply why they shouldn’t eat these products.
In answer to the last part of your question, yes, I do believe we’ve fallen into the trap of failing to recognize carnism just as we have with other oppressive ideologies, both historically and currently. My hope is that my book helps people to think more critically about all systems of which they’re a part; carnism operates in a very similar way to other oppressive ideologies.
Philip:
On page 60 in your book you explain how horrible ,cruel and inherent the suffering and death is that is completely inseparable part of the dairy industry. So, I'm wondering why you chose not to use the word vegan in your book?
Melanie:
I wrote my book to try to reach out to carnists, and the focus of the book was on carnism (rather than vegetarianism or veganism). So I rarely used the term “vegetarian” and avoided using “vegan” except for one or two instances. I didn’t want carnists to feel that I was pushing an ideology at them but rather exposing the ideology that’s been guiding their choices thus far, and encouraging them to step outside of that system.
I’ve been told by many carnist readers that they were open to reading my book because it didn’t feel “preachy” and it didn’t feel like it was about vegetarianism or veganism per se, but about the horrors of carnism. They said they didn’t get the sense I was trying to “sell vegetarianism” to them. And many of these same people told me that they stopped eating animals after reading the book.
The terms “vegetarian” and “vegan” immediately conjure images and feelings in carnists’ minds. I often do an exercise with my students asking them to “describe a vegetarian” and the list of adjectives they come up with is rarely, if ever, flattering. When I do the same exercise with “vegan” the students either don’t know what the term means or they have even more prejudicial ideas about vegans than they did about vegetarians.
“Vegetarian” and “vegan” have very different connotations for you and me than they do for most carnists. These are loaded words, immediately invoking imagery and feelings that can put carnists on the defensive. Having said this, I made sure to refer, at points in my book, to “meat and other animal products” and I also included fairly extensive descriptions of the dairy and egg industries, so that readers would be aware of the cruelty inherent in all animal foods.
Philip:
As a psychologist I'm wondering if you can explain how it is people can believe one proposition while at the exact same time successfully believing something completely different?
How do such cognitive gymnastics occur?
Melanie:
In my book I elucidate the specific mechanisms that carnism uses to maintain itself, mechanisms that exist on both social and psychological levels. These range from what I call the Three Ns of Justification (eating meat is normal, natural, and necessary) to de-individualization, not recognizing the individuality of members of species we’ve been conditioned to consume (a pig is a pig and all pigs are the same). All defenses are woven together to create “psychic numbing,” which is the psychological and emotional disconnect that enables people to eat meat and other animal products. Carnism is an illogical system that uses psychic numbing to prevent people from seeing the absurdities of carnistic beliefs and behaviors.
Philip:
I've always felt that eating animals was part of a belief system that we no longer needed to participate in. Yet it appears to be only an off shoot of a larger dogma we have about non humans.
Why do we drink the milk of some animals and not others? Why do we think it's ok to shoot wolves from helicopters but would never allow the same to be done to their domesticated ancestors?
Why do so many humans believe it's acceptable to imprison and conduct painful experiments on a chimpanzee for her entire life but think it's wrong to use human stem cells for medical research? There are, as we all know too well, horrible myths and beliefs being embraced that allow us to do so many cruel and unnecessary things to non human animals.
Do you imagine that carnism is but a small part of a much wider more encompassing erroneous belief system that we humans possess about the other animals of the world?
Melanie:
Yes. I see carnism as a sub-ideology of speciesism, just as anti-Semitism, for instance, is a sub-ideology of racism. The ethos, or ideological backdrop, of speciesism is what makes carnism possible in the first place.
But I do believe that we need to address carnism as a separate “ism” because even though it’s informed by speciesism, it has distinct features that make it unique. And my hope is that by understanding carnism, people will be less resistant to examining other expressions of speciesism, or perhaps speciesism as a whole. Also, I think it’s impossible to expect the average carnist to seriously consider their participation in the vast, all-encompassing paradigm of human supremacy (which is what informs the ideology we call speciesism). For those of us who have been exploring these issues, it simply seems logical—an ethical imperative—to examine our human privilege. But for most people in the world today, the notion of human supremacy is overwhelming, abstract, absurd, and so far outside their cognitive and emotional comfort zones that it’s deeply threatening and intellectually confounding to seriously consider this issue.
I’ve been criticized by some vegans for not “challenging” carnists enough, for creating a word—carnism—that can be what they see as a distraction from the broader issue of speciesism. But this criticism fails to take into account the psychological nature of human beings; it is based on the assumption that ideological purity will sell itself, that social transformation is simply a matter of educating people about oppressive ideologies. But as we know, more often than not, the facts don’t sell the ideology. We need to meet people where they’re at, and asking carnists to reflect on their carnism is, in my opinion, an excellent place to start encouraging conversations about human-nonhuman relationships in general as well as to reduce harm caused to animals by reducing carnistic consumption.
Philip:
When people truly believe something it changes everything about the way they behave in the world. Every culture it seems practices a form of carnism, but we know from spending time looking back at history that a deeply held belief system can be overcome and a conceptual or compassionate revolution which destroys that belief system can take place. What is the most efficient way we can advocate for veganism and to transform peoples beliefs about the other animals of the world?
Melanie:
I believe that raising awareness of carnism is vital to mobilizing the vegan movement. Understanding carnism enables us to radically reframe the issue of eating animals: if we see meat (and other animal products) consumption not simply as a matter of personal ethics, but as the inevitable end result of a deeply entrenched belief system, this can dramatically change the way we think and talk about the issue. Furthermore, by understanding the mechanisms and structure of carnism, we are at a tremendous advantage.
We can communicate and advocate much more effectively, as we navigate carnists’ defenses, and we can actually identify the structure of the system we’re working to transform. Because, in my opinion, veganism isn’t simply about abolishing the consumption of so-called animal products, but about transforming the very system that makes eating animals possible in the first place. Understanding carnism can help us focus on the cause of the problem, rather than simply on the consequences of it.
Philip:
Melanie, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and your ideas with us.
For all the animals every where it is much appreciated.
For more information on Melanie visit her websites. Melaniejoy.org
Carnism.com
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